abandonware games sorted by popularity

Hardball 3 builds on its predecessor with a noticeable sense of confidence, as if it knows it has already proven itself and now wants to show off a little. The graphics are improve...

Forgotten Worlds is what happens when gravity politely excuses itself and lets you spin in circles while shooting absolutely everything. Originally an arcade spectacle, this DOS ve...

Released in 2003 for Windows XP, Babylon 5: I've Found Her is the kind of fan-made game that makes you question whether it’s actually fan-made or secretly a pilot for a new s...

Released in 1993, Lethal Tender combines platform action with a satirical storyline centered on greed, money, and determined heroes. Players jump through colorful levels while coll...

Boston Bomb Club (1991, DOS) is a Rube Goldberg fever dream disguised as a puzzle game. Your mission: guide bombs (yes, bombs) along increasingly elaborate tracks using contraption...

The Operative: No One Lives Forever is a first-person shooter with stealth gameplay elements, developed by Monolith Productions and released by Fox Interactive in 2000 for Windows,...

Dylan Dog: Through the Looking Glass takes the surrealism of the comics and dives headfirst into nightmare territory. Imagine Carroll’s Wonderland rewritten by Lovecraft and ...

Superhero League of Hoboken is a humorous role-playing game (RPG) released in 1994, developed by Legend Entertainment. It's a quirky mix of a traditional RPG and an adventure game,...

President Elect: 1988 Edition is a political simulation game developed by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) and released in the mid-1980s. The game simulates U.S. presidential elec...

Flying Tigers 2 (1994, DOS) doubles down on the formula of its predecessor and adds a bit more bite to the bark. The action is still brisk, but the skies feel busier, the stakes sl...

In 1991, DOS gamers were treated to the weirdest parenting simulator ever: Baby Joe in: Going Home. You play as Baby Joe, an infant inexplicably left to crawl through caves, forest...

If you thought Norse mythology needed more monochrome graphics, Caves of Thor (1989) has you covered. It’s an early Apogee game, meaning it’s tough, quirky, and uses le...

Lyle in Cube Sector (2006, Windows) looks like it fell out of a lost NES cartridge and landed straight on your hard drive. This indie metroidvania has you tossing cubes, exploring ...

IVAN (Iter Vehemens ad Necem) is one of the strangest and deepest roguelikes ever created. Released in 2001, it combines brutal difficulty with extraordinary detail, from limb dama...

Building upon the original formula, Kingdom of Kroz 2 introduces fresh levels, new challenges, and even more opportunities to question every decision you make. Exploration remains ...

If Krazy Ivan (1996, Windows XP) had a motto, it’d be “Blow it up first, ask later.” You pilot a massive mech across post-apocalyptic battlefields, obliterating a...

With a title like Pray for Death, you know you’re not signing up for a cheerful platformer. This is a fighting game with a gothic, heavy-metal aesthetic that screams 1996. It...

DuckTales: The Quest for Gold takes everyone’s favorite miserly duck, Scrooge McDuck, and sends him globetrotting for treasure. It’s part platformer, part management si...

Klax takes the familiar tile-matching concept and adds speed, pressure, and just enough chaos to keep players constantly on edge. Colored tiles race toward the bottom of the screen...

Forget Peter Jackson’s version. CHAMP Kong brings the big ape back to his pixelated roots, where ladders were death traps and barrels were pure evil. This charming homage to ...